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Running on E85

Running on Ethanol
The oil companies REALLY don't want you to know how ready your current car is for E85. Cars have been designed to be ethanol resistant since the early 90s. The cars that are currently on the road are suited for running E50 (50% gas, 50% ethanol) with NO modifications. I have been running ethanol in my 95 Toyota Celica GT for over 5000 miles. I have seen no problems and think that more people should be more aware of the benefits to using ethanol. E85 is simply a superior fuel to standard gasoline. It truly is 110 octane and SIGNIFICANTLY increases horsepower. I have also only seen a very slight decrease in average MPG which leads me to the conclusion that the combustion of ethanol is actually more efficient then the simple BTU comparison. Higher octane leads to much faster acceleration, which causes the car to reach cruising speed quicker. This means that the engine is able to idle sooner than it does running pure gasoline and idling uses less fuel. For cars with a manual transmission, like my car, drivers are able to take this a step further by shifting into neutral. I find myself coasting in neutral a lot. Also, ethanol performs better at highway speeds (80MPH+) and no reduction in fuel economy is noticeable. Ethanol is a reasonable option for the present, and any talk of flex fuel vehicles is just Detroit trying to get you to buy a new car that you don't need. I also can't believe that the car companies haven't made all their cars FFVs yet and say that they will reach this goal in a couple years. Running cars on ethanol is relatively simple to engineer and requires the fuel injectors run on a slightly different program that slows the timing of the injectors slightly. Why must it take years to program something so simple?

Do you work for an ethanol plant?

Wow do people actually think

Wow do people actually think ethanol is better...you are wrong in the head. Just think about it less mileage more filling, and faster acceleration=more fuel used. Their is a lot of technology out there and all they can think of is ethanol. Wow we live in a money hungry place.

The only way any vehicle can

The only way any vehicle can make use of higher octane is with an active fuel sensor that actually "sniffs" the incoming fuel. With advanced programming, the engine management system could advance the ignition timing, adjust cam timing and even turbo boost if so equipped. Only one-off supercars come close to this, or certain racecars. Certainly not the 1995 Toyota Celica GT. At best you might have a knock sensor that will retard timing resulting in reduced power when low octane regular is used and this is only if the car is tuned to actually require higher grade fuel. Also, what does cruising at highway speeds have to do with an engine at idle? Nothing. Spewing this sort of mis-information only serves to impede the transition to the happy happy joy joy green way of life you seek. Wake up, deal with reality, and we will ALL benefit. Or, you can just keep puffin' on that pipe dream.

Ethanol has a lower BTU

Ethanol has a lower BTU content than gasoline. Therefore all else being equal, there is no way horsepower will increase simply by running E85 in place of pure gas. Again, to take advantage of the higher octane of ethanol, the engine can be built with a higher compression ratio, or run with higher boost to compensate for the lower energy content. Again, unless one has the aforementioned active programming like new Ford vehicles sold in Brazil, you're outta luck and tossing money in the breeze as you burn your food.